The rush of new clauses and sub-clauses in the transaction documents for the modernisation of the country’s two busiest airports — including stringent conditions like absorption of at least 40 per cent of existing Airports Authority of India employees — has not dimmed interest levels. Six of the 10 bidders remain in the fray.Under pressure from the Left, the government is keen to ensure that it extracts the maximum commitment from the private consortium on maintaining ‘‘world-class’’ standards. So, there is a list of mandatory tasks to be completed before 2010, an ambitious phase-wise development plan that envisages Delhi should be able to hand 80 million passengers by 2025. Mumbai, of course will saturate faster, but the consortium must increase capacity by at least 30 per cent in a decade.All Eyes On Delhi and Mumbai.Despite stringent conditions, the Delhi-Mumbai process is going ahead precisely because there is scope emerging from the transition in the aviation sector. And the biggest impact will eventually be on the AAI, the public sector undertaking that has so far been the sole custodian of the 125 Indian airports.But years of centralised control has led to selective focus on a few busy airports while the rest of the infrastructure gradually deteriorated. Despite this, Delhi and Mumbai suffered from lack of attention with their expansion delayed by over a decade. Result: the two airports were bursting at the seams by the late 1990s, thanks to the increase in number of flights as well as the operationalisation of new airlines.The principal problem was in the AAI Act that did not allow for passing on any kind of control to private players barring, of course, the sub-contracting of some airport-related services. It was not until 2003 that the government moved on amending this Act and on July 1, 2004, these changes were finally notified.More than a year later, the bids have been submitted. Now begins the selection process, where the technical bids will be first opened and marked against an evaluation matrix. Only those securing 80 per cent marks and above will be selected. The financial bids of these chosen few will then be opened. And the consortium offering the maximum revenue to AAI will be preferred. Clearly, all steps have been taken to ensure that AAI does not lose out financially in the process.According to modifications in the AAI Act, the ATC and airport security will remain with the government. This means that bulk of the aeronautical revenue collected by the AAI will continue to accrue to the government. So the private consortia will have to generate money through non-aeronautical commercial ventures. The idea is to get them to invest maximum in duty-free shops, malls, restaurants and such ventures.And the 40 Airports BeyondWith the AAI not having to play a big role in the restructuring, the government has directed it to concentrate on modernising over 40 non-metro airports. According to a broad estimate, the likely investment into airports will be around Rs 40,000 crore.The AAI will take up the modernisation drive in a phased manner with 10 airports already identified in the first phase. These include Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Udaipur, Thiruvananthapuram, Jaipur, Amritsar, Guwahati and Madurai. A global technical advisor is also being appointed to specifically advise on the architecture and design aspects of the project.Besides, the success in finalising the first two greenfield airports at Bangalore and Hyderabad has had a cascading effect with the Goa, Maharashtra and Punjab governments now chasing the Civil Aviation Ministry for approval of similar projects. Ludhiana, Mopa (Goa), Pune and Navi Mumbai are the sites under consideration by the Civil Aviation Ministry. The impediment that most of these locations face is their proximity to defence locations that makes airspace control a problem.While these are projects to be handled in the long-run, a range of short-term projects have been undertaken to construct additional parking bays in Delhi and Mumbai to cater to the rush of flights into these cities. Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel says this is his priority now because if the boom has to sustain, then emergence of world class airports is an urgent need. The Ministry and the Planning Commission have been in close touch with each other on the subject and have kept 2010 has a deadline to show results.
